Million dollar bid for Lenin body

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of the Russian Buddhist region of Kalmykia said Friday he was willing to stump up $1 million to give a new home to the embalmed body of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.

Last month a top aide to President Vladimir Putin suggested burying Lenin, now a tourist attraction in a guarded mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square, prompting a debate about the revolutionary's place in post-Soviet Russia.
Kalmykia's leader, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, offered to put Lenin on permanent display in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, which lies on the Caspian Sea. Some historians say Lenin was one quarter Kalmyk.

"I have officially informed Gennady Zyuganov, head of the Russian Communist Party, that if the question of burying Lenin arises, we would be prepared to allocate $1 million to bring the body and the mausoleum to Elista," he told Interfax news agency.

"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."